2025 Ram HD First Drive Review: A Hard Worker That Feels Like It’s Hardly Working

Even if you have a Bowtie tattooed on your forearm or a Blue Oval on your bicep, you have to admit that Ram knows trucks. Said trucks will duke it out with Chevys and Fords in perpetuity, and it’s clear those rivalries inform every decision when it comes to building ‘em. It’s all about which one is more capable and, these days, more premium, which is why the 2025 Ram HD takes yet another step up in nearly every area. But is it enough?

I’m going to say yeah, it is. The topline details hit all the high points you could ask for, from the tweaked Cummins diesel with 1,075 lb-ft of torque as standard to a new ZF eight-speed automatic to the reworked exterior styling that I criticized before but, I’ll admit, looks better in person. We tested these new Rams at the famously steep Davis Dam grade on Arizona State Route 68, and while I’ll get more into that in a bit, what’s important to know is this: They never broke a sweat.

Now, I don’t love everything about the truck, but it’s clear after driving a handful of examples why Ram made the tweaks it did. If you can stomach the price—at least three of the onsite testers were north of $100,000—then you’re in for a mighty good pickup. I’ll take a one-ton Laramie in red with the eight-spoke 20s, please.

The Ram HD isn’t all-new for 2025, though it does get a healthy mid-cycle refresh from the 2500 model on up to the 5500. Nearly every upgrade was made with the intent of improving standard equipment, which is a plus in terms of value considering they’re just a few hundred bucks more than last year’s models. They’re still pricey, but at least the sticker feels more justified than before.

As for the exterior, the front fascia is easily distinguishable from the outgoing trucks with new grille designs and—get this—split headlights. That’s a first for Ram trucks. And while I stand by my argument that some of the grilles have too much going on, like the Power Wagon’s and Rebel’s with all their vertical and horizontal lines, others look sharp. The R-A-M lettering is raised higher up on every model and the goal was to give it a stronger road presence. I’m not entirely sure the old one didn’t already have enough of that but here we are.

You’ll find updates inside like a clearer 12-inch screen on some trims and a new 14.5-inch infotainment display on others, which is plenty big. Ram’s interiors differ from the other heavy-duty pickups with vertical center screens, and for 2025, they even offer a 10.25-inch passenger side interface that’s mounted above the glovebox. People riding shotgun can make navigation inputs through that, view exterior cameras, and even connect their mobile devices with an HDMI cord to use it as an extension of their iPad or laptop or what have you. 

What truck people will really care about is the powertrain, and if you include yourself in that camp, you’ll be glad to know that’s where the biggest updates come in. The 6.7-liter Cummins diesel now makes 430 horsepower and 1,075 lb-ft of torque in every 2500 and 3500, doing away with the old standard output and high output guises from yesteryear. Additionally, in a move that at least some folks are very excited about, the diesel engine now uses glow plugs to assist with cold starts instead of the previous grid heater. A fresh TorqueFlite HD eight-speed is the only available transmission across the board, but in my albeit brief experience, it’s a good one—better than the outgoing six-speed Aisin. And the 6.4-liter Hemi gasser is still around with the same 410 hp and 429 lb-ft of torque.

The Davis Dam grade where I tested these trucks is a notoriously tough 11.4-mile stretch of desert road. Every pickup manufacturer is required to test here, actually, as this is where they obtain what’s known as their SAE J2807 certification. It’s meant to standardize the max tow rating process as companies have to drive up the grade, fully loaded, with ambient temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the AC on full blast while maintaining 40 mph for single-rear-wheel trucks or 35 mph for dually models. There are a few other requirements as well for acceleration and braking, which fortunately are never in question for these modern HD pickups.

Admittedly, our testing days were a bit different. It was pretty darn brisk on the Nevada-Arizona line with temps between 40 and 50 degrees, a far cry from the triple digits that locals are more used to seeing the rest of the year. None of the trucks were loaded up to their max tow rating, either. But that’s not to say there weren’t heavy loads as the Case tractor I hauled up the grade first combined with the gooseneck trailer weighed a skosh over 19,000 pounds. That’s a realistic load for Ram HD customers.

For that test, I was in a Laramie 3500 dually with the refreshed Cummins and new eight-speed. “Might as well go big right off the bat,” I said. I buckled up, engaged Tow/Haul mode with the exhaust brake set to auto, and headed out.

The climb starts in Bullhead City, Nevada, which has an elevation of just 541 feet above sea level. Cross the Colorado River with the trailer in tow and you head left toward Union Pass, which is the official ending point of the Davis Dam grade at roughly 3,500 feet overlooking Golden Valley. In between is a mix of inclines with frequent 6% grades and signs on the downhill warning truckers to use low gears while pointing to runaway ramps in case their rigs just won’t stop.

I’m here to tell you that Davis Dam is almost boring in a new Ram HD. That’s a compliment, I promise. There’s no drama, which is exactly what you want when you’re working. I kept an eye on all of the gauges as we made the ascent, passing semis and passenger cars alike with the hefty load in tow. The coolant temp never went over 210 degrees and the trans temp didn’t spike a lick. It just went, with the throttle pegged, never dropping below the speed limit which reaches 65 mph at the top.

While I was impressed with the Cummins inline-six, I expected that. What I wasn’t sure of was how the new eight-speed automatic would do. I couldn’t force a hard shift from that sucker as hard as I tried, and the logic is smart enough not to slam down a gear just because the driver puts their foot down. Instead, the Cummins spools its turbo up past 30 psi and steadily increases the power sent out back to the exclusively available 3.42 rear end. Before long, it’s picking up speed and doing it in a way that doesn’t grenade the hardware already running at high stress on a hike like Davis Dam.

It completes the climb in no time. Flip back around and it’ll run down the grade without any extra pedal input after the auto exhaust brake learns roughly what speed you want to maintain. I never once set the cruise control but after I slowed down to 65 heading back toward Bullhead City, the truck kept itself at that speed with the big load pushing behind it. I slowed down to 45 mph after that and the exhaust brake kept it there, too. I never had to intervene aside from setting the expected speed with each limit change, and in another run later on, I set the exhaust brake to fully on which slowed the big ol’ truck and trailer combo to a crawl.

I concede that all this would have been more impressive if the conditions were as harsh as they typically are in the Arizona desert. That said, we know the rig can handle 100-plus degree temps with a full load behind it because it’s legitimately required to. And if it can handle something like Davis Dam on a hellishly hot day, then by golly, I reckon it can handle you hauling sailboat fuel around town 360 days a year.

As I mentioned earlier, my impressions of the 2025 Ram HD are mostly positive, but not completely. I drove an unladen 2500 Longhorn Limited from Las Vegas to the test site near Laughlin, Nevada, and that beast was so bouncy on the interstate at times that my wife could hear it in my voice as I talked to her over the truck’s handsfree system. The road has a lot to do with that, I know, but that thing was like a springboard without any weight behind it. I doubt it would have felt awesome in a leaf-sprung truck, but it’s my hunch that the Ram’s rear five-link coil suspension exaggerated it all a bit.

Oh, and I prefer a horizontally oriented infotainment display. It’s true that you can run multiple apps at once on the Ram’s Uconnect 5 system with a split screen, but that’s too distracting to me. I’d rather not be squinting with my head tilted down in order to read whatever’s on the bottom half of the screen, whether that be the HVAC settings or audio or what have you.

The 2025 Ram 2500 starts at $47,560 including destination while the 3500 is a grand more at $48,565. None of the trucks Ram had at the event were that affordable as the cheapest one I found was a crew cab gas 2500 Tradesman 4×4 which still cost a whopping $63,635 thanks to the Level Two Equipment Group ($3,195), Safety Group ($2,795), Towing Technology Group ($2,395), and Bed Utility Group ($845). The priciest one was the crew cab diesel 3500 Limited 4×4 dually at $102,690, though there was a mega cab Cummins 2500 4×4 not far behind it at $102,400. That’s insane, man.

Of course, it’s a similar story with Ford and Chevy. The Super Duty starts at $47,395 for a gas F-250 XL while the Silverado 2500 HD is practically identical at $47,295 after destination. The Chevy’s ceiling is the lowest of the bunch—I couldn’t option a three-quarter-ton past $95,000—but I built a diesel F-250 Platinum Plus on Ford’s site that cost more than $105,000. Yowza.

To wrap it all up, I’m a fan of the 2025 Ram HD. That updated Cummins is as solid as ever, the new transmission is better in pretty much every way, the interiors are solid, and even the exterior looks slick in person. If a hard worker is what you’re looking for, then shoot, the Ram is it. And because they come in lots of different specs, from base Hemi Tradesmans to Limited Longhorns with tooled leather and a Cummins, there’s one for everybody. 

Any new pickup on the market today can do what you need it to do. And if for whatever reason they aren’t capable enough, then you should probably shop for a semi instead. It all comes down to preference, and as it’s been proven over the last three decades, plenty of people prefer a Cummins. With these new updates, Ram fans have quite a bit to get excited about.

Quick Take

Thanks to a list of intentional updates, the rest of the Ram HD is finally as nice as its powertrain.

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